A lost loved one

Mom warns others about suicide

Patty Jacobs lost her 32-year-old son, Allen Boring Jr., when he committed suicide nearly 10 years ago. The last photograph taken of Boring is framed in Jacobs’ home. Boring, like many others who commit suicide, was dealing with a relationship problem and depression.

Patty Jacobs lost her 32-year-old son, Allen Boring Jr., when he committed suicide nearly 10 years ago. Jacobs is very open about her experience dealing with grief and her own depression. She is actively promoting education about depression and suicide.

It was early on the morning of Memorial Day 1997 when Allen Boring Jr. pressed a small shotgun against his chest and, while talking on the phone to his estranged wife, pulled the trigger.

Boring, still conscious after the shot, called a friend, apologized and said he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

He died four hours later.

Boring's story is not unique. It has been nearly 10 years since he committed suicide, but the problems that lead to it are familiar in Vanderburgh County, where officials are grappling with a suicide rate on pace to smash records this year.

The Southwestern Indiana Suicide Prevention Coalition, a contingent of local health care providers, community groups, families of victims and other volunteers work together to develop solutions to the issue.

They say there is a need for increased awareness, understanding and education on all aspects of suicide, from recognizing and treating depression to dealing with the grief of losing a loved one.

Sixty-year-old Patty Jacobs, Bor-

ing's mother, knows that grief well. For months after her son's death, she barely left her bed. Now, she talks openly about what happened and is active in support groups and education efforts.

"Here in Evansville, we've had a lot of (suicides) lately," Jacobs said. "And unless we as a community step up to the plate and start educating, it's going to continue."

Don Erk worked 24 years on the Evansville Police Department before shifting to the coroner's office, where he spent eight years as chief deputy coroner and the last seven years as the man in charge.

In that span, he has investigated hundreds of suicides and had to face more grieving families than he ever cared to see.

One thing has remained constant: There is no such thing as an ordinary suicide.

"You're talking about irrational behavior and things that make logical sense to you and I, and you can forget that when you're investigating a suicide," Erk said. "There is nothing logical or anything close to that."

But even so, there are common trends - some explainable, others a mystery - that seem to pervade suicide data year in and year out.

Boring's case exhibits many of them.

He had a history of depression and ultimately pulled the trigger a month-and-a-half after his wife left him, which mirrors the depression and relationship problems Erk sees in a majority of his cases.

As a 32-year-old white male, Boring's age, sex and race placed him among the most at-risk for suicide.

From 2003 to 2006, Vanderburgh County had 117 suicides and 99 of them were men. Of those, 96 were white, the rest black.

Seventy-four of the victims, more than 60 percent, committed suicide by shooting themselves in the head or chest.

Those trends are continuing this year as Vanderburgh County is on pace to shatter its yearly record for suicides.

The county typically averages between 20 and 30 suicides a year, recording its present high of 31 in 2003.

The most recent Centers for Disease Control figures predicts 11.3 suicides per 100,000 people in Indiana, which translates to about 20 in a community with the population of Vanderburgh County.

But this year, for reasons not clear to local officials, the numbers seem to be ballooning in record-breaking fashion.

During the first few weeks of the year, the county was averaging a suicide every 72 hours. While that pace has slowed, their frequencies remain unusually high.

Already this year, there are 14 confirmed suicides and three others possible depending on toxicology reports.

That means the county may already be halfway to a record number of suicides in just three months.

Just one week before he died, Boring called a friend and told him he planned to commit suicide and would do so by shooting himself.

But by the end of the conversation, the topic had changed, and Boring sounded cheerful, like a completely different person.

The friend reasoned that people who talk about suicide never go through with it.

A week later, it became clear they do.

Local suicide prevention experts fear such circumstances may be too common. They say the public is not informed enough about the causes, warning signs - talking about suicide is a big one - and treatment options or how big a problem suicide actually poses.

So the coalition meets monthly, raising funds and exchanging ideas about the best way to inform the public. Awareness could be one key to saving lives, said Janie Chappell, chairwoman of the coalition and director of business development at Deaconess Cross Pointe, which also offers its own prevention and treatment programs.

The coalition has created and distributed a brochure with warning signs, phone numbers and treatment options and sponsored a number of community awareness programs, including a suicide walk and a symposium last fall.

But it still faces an uphill battle, Chappell said.

"It's just hard to do because (suicide) is not at the top of everyone's list," she said. "But that's part of our goal, to educate so it does become more at the top of everyone's list to see what a big problem it really is."

Mental Health America of Vanderburgh County, which is a part of the coalition, is planning to reach out to the community next month with an anxiety and depression screening to be held on the walkway outside Old National Bank headquarters. The event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 9, is designed to attract people who might normally resist seeking help.

There is still a prevalent stigma, said local MHA Executive Director Maryann Joyce, that paints depression as a shameful condition to have.

"We're trying to reach the average person where they are to educate about what depression looks like," she said.

Meanwhile, the coalition is training representatives to speak to groups that could benefit from learning about suicide and depression at future outreach events.

Jacobs, for one, would like to share Boring's story. She knows it might be tough and some people will judge her, but she said the potential to make a difference is too great to pass up.

"For me, it's an important message and whatever I have to do to get it out there, I'm going to do it," she said. "If someone looks at me and thinks 'You really were a bad mother,' let them look. I don't care. I care that people know it's a problem."

As coroner, there may be nothing harder for Erk than dealing with the family members of suicide victims.

Likewise, there seems to be nothing harder for the families than accepting their loved ones committed suicide.

"I get calls frequently that tell me I've kind of messed up their life," Erk said. "They don't want their friends or their family to believe that their loved one did this. I've actually had people ask me 'Can you put it in some way that doesn't sound like that?'"

Erk investigated one case where the evidence clearly pointed to a self-inflicted hanging, but the parents of the victim did not believe their son committed suicide. The case, he said, went on for years.

Multiple forensic pathologists were called in, and it didn't end until the family personally hired one from Indianapolis. Erk said the pathologist traveled to Evansville, briefly looked at the case files and then, seeing a clear-cut suicide, incredulously told the family, "You called me here for THIS?"

"You have to feel sorry for the families because they're left with all the guilt," Erk said, "Yet at the same time you have to look at it as a mental condition."

Religious views have also presented a problem for many families, Erk said, although in recent years different faiths have softened their stances on suicide.

Rev. Brian Erickson, University of Evansville chaplain, said there are conflicting thoughts on suicide within Christian religions regarding whether the deceased can truly repent for the act.

But while all Christian denominations decry the taking of a life and do not condone suicide, they have also introduced a sense of empathy for those struggling with depression and for those who have already died, Erickson said.

"The focus is less on the sin of suicide and more on how do we show grace and compassion to people who are experiencing depression," he said.

Views vary in other religions. It is still strictly forbidden in Islam, and it is considered a sinful act in Judaism, although it, too, has introduced the idea of mental illness as a contributing factor.

But religion is just one possible struggle for a family member of a suicide victim. Chief Deputy Coroner Annie Groves said acceptance will continue to be a problem until depression itself is fully accepted.

"I don't think that will ever change until the stigma of it changes," she said. "Depression is a disease, just like breast cancer or heart disease."

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The end of next month will mark a full decade since Patty Jacobs lost her only son.

She has since developed depression as well and visits the same therapist her son did, who tells her Boring had more pain than she ever knew.

She has found hope in support groups for people like herself.

The grief will never subside, Jacobs said, but coping with it becomes a part of life that shifts with the times. Anniversaries and birthdays and holidays are never easy, but life goes on and so, too, will she.

Jacobs can tell the story of his death matter-of-factly, pausing to wipe away tears briefly as she recalls that when a paramedic arrived, her son asked one to hold his hand because he was scared.

Boring's is a story of pain and destruction, another victim of a sadness many still don't understand. Jacobs hopes for a day when more people will, when treatment is better and more readily available.

"We've got to realize there are people out there who need help and we've got to do something about it," she said. "If people could hear, in (Boring's) own words, 'I made the biggest mistake of my life,' that could be a bigger teacher than a lot of things. If his story saves just one person, it would mean the world to me."